Stanley Cup Playoff Push 2026: Spring Has Sprung

The 2025-26 NHL season has now entered the spring season, and that's the season were things get important. We are now down to the final 26 days of the NHL season, less than a month, less than four weeks. The races get intense around this time, and regarding certain areas, it's getting very, very tight! Logjams are pretty much everywhere. So many teams have chances for something. Flip-flops are still happening, a lot of them in the last week!

So what does the playoff picture look like in the third recap story of the season? Prepare to be shocked!

Atlantic Division

The Atlantic Division's Top 3 has not changed, as the Buffalo Sabres still lead the division with 94 points. The Tampa Bay Lightning are second in the division with 90 points, while the Montréal Canadiens continue to hang on to third place with 86 points. The Sabres continue to be red hot, and according to the standings, this upcoming week could see Buffalo finally end their long playoff drought. The Bolts and Habs are led by red hot players; Nikita Kucherov's penchant for racking up points has actually moved him into the points lead, and Cole Caufield continues to score goals on Saturdays--he's now two goals behind Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead. If this Top 3 holds, then we'll get a rematch of the 2021 Final in Round 1.

Metropolitan Division

We do have a change to the Metropolitan Division's Top 3, and it's a very intriguing one. The Carolina Hurricanes still have a sizable lead in the division, and the Pittsburgh Penguins still in second place, but there's a new holder of the third place position. The Columbus Blue Jackets are the hottest team in the last two months. They fired Dean Evason as head coach, and at that time, they were in the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Since then, Columbus is 18-2-4, and they moved past the New York Islanders for third place in the Metro! Columbus nearly made it last year, but this year looks like it'll a different story.

Wild Cards

Entering Saturday's head to head battle, the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings actually had the exact same record. That changed with the Bruins' 4-2 win in Detroit, so Boston now holds the WC1 spot, while Detroit holds the WC2 spot. The New York Islanders now find themselves behind the playoff line thanks to the fact that two Atlantic clubs hold the Wild Card positions, but it's not by much. The Isles are one point out, but they do have the Ottawa Senators and the Philadelphia Flyers on their trail. So yeah, we do have a logjam for the Wild Card spots in the East, and it does include the Canadiens and Blue Jackets, because while they do sit at third place in their respective divisions, it's not by much.

Central Division

The Group of Death, aka the Central Division, is still led by the Colorado Avalanche with 100 points. The Avs, on March 20, became the first team to reach 100 points, and we are also the first to officially lock in a spot in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Dallas Stars are in second place with 97 points, having just lost in overtime to the Minnesota Wild, who are in third place with 92 points. The Avs are already in, and the Dallas Stars can clinch a spot as early as Sunday against Vegas, while the Wild can also clinch at some point this upcoming week.

Pacific Division

And we go from the Group of Death to the Group of Dead, aka the Pacific Division. It's the latter one-third of March, and no one in the Pacific has clinched a winning record yet. 80 points lead the Pacific, and that total belongs to the Anaheim Ducks, who are clearly the best of the worst right now. The Edmonton Oilers received the bad news that they will be without Leon Draisaitl for the rest of the regular season, but despite this, the Oilers are in second place in the Pacific because the Vegas Golden Knights are freefalling. Vegas has lost nine of their last dozen games, and they've scored just once in thier last three games. Yikes!

Wild Cards

While the Utah Mammoth continued to hold on to the WC1 position in the West, the game of "Musical Chairs" regarding the WC2 position continued. After many teams shuffled positions, the team holding the WC2 position with 26 days left in the season: the Nashville Predators?! Wasn't this team supposed to be dead?! It sure seemed like it. However, from what I've seen, the Preds have capitalized from the Kings, Kraken, and Sharks all being messes. Kings have lost four of six. Kraken and Sharks are both on the "Jeri Ryan skid"; lost seven of nine. Preds won five of their last eight. That's how the team pulled a Lazarus and went from being pretty much done to being above the line. So this four team logjam has become a serious one, and if you actually consider the fact that the Jets and Blues are pretty close, then it's six teams!

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26 days left and the only thing that is certain is that the Avalanche are in the playoffs. Yes, the Stars are close as well, but still, there is a lot of shuffling going on in the Stanley Cup Playoff picture. Tune in next week when the Blues somehow sneak their way into the WC2 spot! Hey, they did it last year!